UNCONSTITUTIONAL: Bobby Jindal’s “Moon Shot” Implodes ²

Houston, we have a problem.

Yesterday, the Louisiana Supreme Court struck down the single-largest and highest-profile policy initiative ever undertaken by Governor Bobby Jindal. In a resounding 6-1 opinion, the court held that Jindal’s plan unconstitutionally violated the State Constitution by diverting funds clearly labeled and dedicated toward public schools in the Minimum Foundation Program.

Source: The Advocate

To think, only a year and a half ago, The Wall Street Journal, titling the story “Jindal’s Education Moon Shot,” praised Jindal effusively for his bold and decisive actions.

From the very beginning, I recognized the fundamental flaws in Jindal’s plans, including, most notably, the ways in which he had planned to fund this initiative, almost entirely through revenue sources that were constitutionally required for public schools. Jindal’s plan, in simple terms, sought to fund his voucher program with public school money. And if you’re a cynic like me, you can’t help but recognize the political calculus at play: Removing substantial revenues from already-struggling public schools is a clear declaration of purpose. Jindal had no desire to truly help existing and struggling public schools improve. In guaranteeing their ultimate failures, Jindal hoped to better justify the marginal improvements that could be gained whenever the State began fully subsidizing voucher schools. It’s the “rob Peter to pay Paul” conundrum, and Jindal had been hoping it would work.

No question, many of Louisiana’s public schools are in bad shape, but here’s the problem: The voucher schools are even worse. A substantial portion of these voucher schools are newly-created church schools with very few credentialed teachers. Thanks to the work of Zack Kopplin and (not to brag) some of the stories I’ve reported on this site, we know that many of these voucher schools teach pseudoscience and revisionist history. Furthermore, during the last year and a half, Zack and I, along with the folks at the News Star and blogger Tom Aswell at the Louisiana Voice, have revealed the ways in which Bobby Jindal and Superintendent John White attempted to qualify anyone and everyone who sought voucher funding– a school owned and operated by a man who believed himself to be a divine Prophet of God, schools that didn’t have classrooms, schools that relied entirely on DVD instruction, schools that used textbooks suggesting the Lochness Monster is real and disproves evolution. These schools are not anomalies.

Jindal so desperately wanted to prove himself as a leader in school voucher reform, he forgot to do his homework: Like it or not, a sizable portion of Louisiana voucher schools are significantly worse than the public schools they seek to replace.

Of the top 500 public high schools in the country, five are from Louisiana: Baton Rouge Magnet in Baton Rouge, Haynes Academy in Metairie, Ben Franklin in New Orleans, Thomas Jefferson High in Jefferson, and LSMSA in Natchitoches. It may mot seem like much, but a State our size, it’s exceptional: There are twice as many public school students in Texas than residents of Louisiana.

Our public schools can and will excel, but we need a Governor who believes in them as much as they believe in themselves.

Old White Men at the Louisiana Family Forum Continue to Obsess Over Screwing Gays ⁶

Last week, a House committee effectively killed Austin Badon’s HB 85 , which would have prevented State public employers from firing employees only on the basis of sexual orientation. Currently, Louisiana has some of the worst, most bigoted, and most discriminatory laws against gays, lesbians, and transgendered Americans in the entire country. From The Times-Picayune:

The bill, which would have applied to only employment with the state government, would have provided means for employees who believe they had been discriminated against to appeal to the state Civil Service Commission or file suit.

Those complaints would have been handled in the same way the state currently handles discrimination based on political beliefs, sex or race. That type of discrimination is banned under the state Constitution.

Immediately after he was elected as Governor, Bobby Jindal rescinded an executive order that prohibited discrimination against gay and lesbian state employees. And a few weeks ago, Representative Alan Seabaugh introduced legislation that would effectively prevent wrongfully terminated gay and lesbian employees from accessing the courts. Quoting:

The Shreveport Republican is sponsoring House Bill 402, which a prominent Louisiana LGBT advocacy group characterizes as “a stealth attempt” to ensure that employment protections for LGBT workers in Louisiana do not become the law of this land. The bill even goes so far as to supersede local non-discrimination laws.

Presented as an attempt to unclog the state court system of all those pesky frivolous lawsuits brought by gay people who are fired due to their unimpeachable flair for interior design, Seabaugh’s bill plays from the GOP “voter fraud” playbook: that is, it addresses a “problem” that doesn’t exist because the rep’s real aim is to suppress something he doesn’t like. Black people voting for Democrats, gays and lesbians having employment protections … whatever. As Matthew Patterson, legislative co-coordinator of Equality Louisiana, points out, “State courts do not face an excessive number of frivolous employment discrimination suits, and they are capable of determining which suits have merit.”

“I can’t get a damn thing done because of all these frivolous gay lawsuits!” said no judge ever.

Where Seabaugh’s bill goes from nakedly discriminatory against our gay neighbors and family members and trips headlong into jackbooted bull crappery is its override of local anti-discrimination laws. Several municipalities in the state have such laws on their books, but if Seabaugh’s “I’m secretly gay therefore I’m publicly anti-gay” bill becomes law it would prevent citizens in those jurisdictions from seeking the employment protections afforded them by their own communities.

In simple terms, Bobby Jindal wants to reserve his right to fire anyone and everyone- including career, classified civil servants- merely for being gay, and Seabaugh wants to ensure these decisions are kept out of the court, preventing people from accessing their duly-earned benefits and rights.

Jindal, as some may recall, recently railed against the national Republican Party as “the stupid party” and called for more inclusion and diversity. But, you see, Governor Jindal and his allies in the Louisiana Family Forum desperately want to retain the ability to fire good and decent Americans and Louisiana public servants because of their sexual orientation. It may sound flippant or snarky, but the truth is: The old white men who run the Louisiana Family Forum are obsessed with screwing over gays. Maybe there are some latent, repressed issues at play, but regardless, it is definitively bigoted and increasingly bizarre.

Take, for example, the testimony of LFF employee Dale Hoffpauir (hat tip to Bob Mann):

First, Dale Hoffpauir is an idiot. Let’s make that clear. He claims that he had a gay black friend who is now married to a woman, and the punchline to this sad and doomed story is, “And yet, he is still an African-American.”

You get it? His gay friend got cured by marrying a lady, obviously proving that it was all just a choice for him, whereas being African-American is, obviously, not a choice. Lord knows, once a gay man or a lesbian woman decides to marry someone of the opposite sex, their sexuality is immediately reprogrammed.

But secondly and perhaps more importantly, Dale Hoffpauir is in absolutely no position to lecture anyone else about ethics or morality. His employer, the Louisiana Family Forum, has engaged in a series of ethically questionable activities and appears to have illegally and improperly funded its advocacy arm- the Louisiana Family Forum Action- through tax-deductible donations.

Also, there’s this:

I understand that many sincere people of faith believe that homosexuality is an abomination and a sin, and as stupid and myopic and cognitively dissonant I may find these beliefs, I respect their right to practice their own religion. But for the last few years, Bobby Jindal and the old white guys at the Louisiana Family Forum have attempted to actively and pro-actively discriminate against gay and lesbian Americans, through official state action.

It’s become an obsession. If the Louisiana Family Forum weren’t also advocating against science, it’d be easy to assume that the organization’s entire raison d’etre is the promotion of homophobic policies.

In America, it’s perfectly fine for your religion to be discriminatory. Really. It’s OK. Whatever. Folks don’t have to join your club. But it’s not OK and it never has been OK for the government to actively or even passively discriminate against people simply because of who they are. If your faith tells you that God will punish homosexuals by sending them all to burn in eternal hell, don’t worry: No one is going to force you to relinquish that belief. I know several devout Christians who spend an inordinate amount of their time attempting to argue and justify their beliefs about how and why homosexuality is sinful; they sometimes seem more consumed by fighting this “culture war” than in actually practicing their religion.

Here’s what I know and believe: Fifty or sixty years from now, when I’m dead and gone, I sure hope that people don’t remember me as someone who stood against equality and fairness; I hope that I can spend my remaining time here on earth promoting shared human dignity, the unbelievable potential of knowledge, and the importance of real and substantive empathy. I’ll try my best, but even if I don’t succeed totally, I’m absolutely certain that history will not be kind to those currently standing in the way.

Louisiana State Senator Supports Creationism Law Because Of His Experience With Witch Doctor ⁷

Update: The videos are online. Part One. Part Two.

For the third year in a row, the Louisiana Senate Education Committee deferred a bill to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act, which allows for the teaching of New Earth Creationism in public school science classrooms. And for the third year in a row, at least one member of the Louisiana Senate managed to steal the show.

Last year, State Senator Mike Walsworth made himself the star of a viral video when he asked a high school science teacher if e.Coli could evolve into human beings. The year before, Senator Julie Quinn dismissed the credibility of more than 70 Nobel laureate scientists as people who just had “little letters behind their names.“

The videos from this year’s committee hearing are not yet available online, but something tells me that State Senator Elbert Guillory is about to become an Internet star.

From The Times-Picayune (bold mine):

Sen. Elbert Guillory, D-Opelousas, said he had reservations with repealing the act after a spiritual healer correctly diagnosed a specific medical ailment he had. He said he thought repealing the act could “lock the door on being able to view ideas from many places, concepts from many cultures.”

“Yet if I closed my mind when I saw this man – in the dust, throwing some bones on the ground, semi-clothed — if I had closed him off and just said, ‘That’s not science. I’m not going to see this doctor,’ I would have shut off a very good experience for myself,” Guillory said.

I hate to break it to Senator Guillory, but the half-naked guy who danced in the dust and threw bones on the ground was lying to you: He was not a doctor. That thing he did: It wasn’t science.

There are three likely explanations: First, the man was a witch doctor. This is Louisiana, after all, and people still make money pretending to believe in voodoo, mainly to please the tourists.

Or this man was under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs.

Or both: This man was a witch doctor tripping out of his mind, running around, half-naked, in a cloud of dust, throwing bones (presumably not human) around for special effect, and then diagnosing Senator Guillory with some sort of vague condition: “The gods tell me there’s a problem with your heart or bones or lungs.”

It’s the same formula used by people who pretend to speak to the dead. “I’m getting a message from someone you know whose name begins with the letter M.” “That must be my mom.”

But I digress.

The important thing is: This man is responsible for decisions about public school science education, and as awesome and as revelatory as the mystical experience he shared with a half-naked “doctor” may have been, it has absolutely nothing to do with science.

For what it’s worth, this isn’t Guillory’s first brush with fame. Two years ago, he worked with the Louisiana Family Forum to advance a redistricting plan that aimed to decrease minority representation and, not surprisingly, enhance Guillory’s own power. “If you check my [voting] record I’ve not been a 100 percenter with the Family Forum,” Guillory said, “but this is not a Republican-Democrat thing.”

Incidentally, I did check his voting record. Quoting from the Louisiana Family Forum (bold mine):

In the Senate, Democratic Sens. Elbert Guillory of Opelousas, David Heitmeier of New Orleans and Rick Ward III of Port Allen and among the 12 senators who scored 100 percent.

This also should be no surprise. Guillory may be a Democrat, but until he decided to run for State Senate, he was a Republican.

And to some, it’s probably not surprising that Guillory wasn’t telling the truth about his voting record.

A few years ago, The Independent Weekly published a cover story on Guillory, revealing, among other things:

The other recent allegations against Guillory that the Cravins camp helped disseminate involve Guillory’s brief tenure as director of the Human Rights Department for the city of Seattle in the early 1980s. The Seattle Post Intelligencer reported that a little more than a year into the job, Guillory was suspended without pay and then resigned after he was charged with five counts of violating the city’s ethics code. An ethics probe found that Guillory had awarded a $9,999 contract (just below the $10,000 threshold requiring a contract be publicly bid) to his soon-to-be wife, signed off on payment for work on the contract that was never done, billed the city for two weeks of work while he was honeymooning in Tahiti (although he had no vacation time), and allowed an employee to bill the city for time spent driving Guillory’s car cross-country from his former residence in Baltimore, Md. The complaints were all filed with the ethics board, but a settlement was reached before an official hearing was held.

Guillory blamed all of this on the Seattle Mayor, suggesting that he was actually the victim of his boss’s disloyalty.

And then there’s this:

In 2002, he was reprimanded by the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board for notarizing a succession document for his client, former Opelousas Police Chief Larry Caillier, in which some of the signatures had apparently been forged and not witnessed by Guillory. Guillory then admitted to mistakenly relying on the word of his client that the signatures were valid.

And this:

Don Cravins Jr. is the first to admit Guillory’s tactics have proven politically effective. “The guy’s unlike anybody else we’ve ever had to deal with,” he says. “It’s one thing to have political disagreements. It’s just that he’s so sly and disingenuous. It’s so hard to deal with that guy.“

Indeed, it’s hard to deal with that guy.

An Open Letter to Conrad Appel, Chairman of the Louisiana Senate Education Committee ²

Dear Chairman Appel,

I am writing to respectfully ask you to support the passage of Senate Bill 26, which would repeal the controversial and unconstitutional Louisiana Science Education Act. I am a proud, lifelong citizen of Louisiana and a graduate of the Louisiana public education system. Like you, I believe in the promise and the potential of our Great State.

During the last eight years, Louisiana has defined the word “resiliency,” both to our country and to the rest of the world. However, if Louisiana is to truly emerge as an enduring example of innovation and ingenuity, we must ensure the strength and durability of not only our physical infrastructure– our levees, roads, bridges, sewage systems, and electrical grids– but of our human infrastructure as well.

As you know, objective, non-partisan studies continually reveal that investments in education and science yield significantly higher rates of return than anything else. Last year, you fought to ensure Louisiana develops strategies to attract students in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), an effort for which I earnestly commend you. You said then, “If we’re going to fit into the 21st century, we need more people graduating in these fields.”

I wholeheartedly agree.

As you rightfully pointed out, if we are to be successful in fostering and cultivating a 21st century workforce, then we must adequately provide our students, early on, with the resources they require to pursue careers in the sciences. “Kids are formulating their own ideas early on,” you said. “We have to focus on high schools too.”

Without question, the Louisiana Science Education Act severely undermines your noble efforts to increase the competitiveness and the viability of Louisiana’s 21st century workforce. I understand that you have already voted twice to oppose the law’s repeal, and with all due respect, Mr. Chairman, I firmly believe that you and many of your colleagues have been purposely deceived about the nature and intention of the Louisiana Science Education Act.

Last year, during the Senate Education Committee hearing on the repeal bill, you questioned whether anyone had actually formally complained about the law. It was a fair and legitimate question, but unfortunately, I don’t think it was properly answered.

Next week, when your committee considers SB 26, I sincerely hope you will also consider the following:

The Louisiana Science Education Act is publicly opposed by more Nobel Prize laureates than any other single law in the entire country and more than any single law in Louisiana history. These 78 laureates are not motivated by any political considerations. Unlike those who have testified in support of the LSEA, none of these laureates are registered lobbyists; none of them have ever been compensated, in any way, for their endorsements. They are among the world’s most accomplished and most preeminent scientists, scholars, and innovators, and suffice it to say, their opposition to the LSEA is not capricious; it’s principled.
The repeal efforts have been led by Louisiana public school students, Louisiana public school graduates, and Louisiana parents, teachers, and professors. With all due respect, your question, last year, regarding “complaints” against the LSEA was somewhat confounding, considering that you were speaking in front of dozens of students, parents, and teachers all there to complain, formally, to the Louisiana Senate Education Committee. Indeed, all told, more than 100,000 people, including thousands of Louisiana citizens, have signed petitions urging for the repeal of the law.
Therefore, I can only assume your question about “complaints” against the LSEA referred, instead, to whether or not any litigation had been filed. I hope you will appreciate that those of us advocating for the law’s repeal earnestly seek to avoid litigation. That said, I am supremely confident that the law would be immediately struck down as facially unconstitutional and in direct violation of the Establishment Clause, and my opinion is shared by an overwhelming consensus of legal experts and nationally-renowned Constitutional law professors. A legal challenge, however, should be the last resort. Again, the repeal effort is being spearheaded by Louisiana citizens, and the law we seek to repeal was crafted, in large part, by the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based creationist “think tank.” The Discovery Institute may be interested in yet another losing “show trial,” but we believe that leaders like you– elected officials who understand the value of science education and the imminent challenges facing Louisiana– are cognizant of the damage the LSEA has already inflicted on the reputation and credibility of our public education system.

Mr. Chairman, considering your strong, unequivocal support for STEM, I believe that you have the unique opportunity and ability to repeal a law that has made Louisiana the subject of national and international ridicule. To be sure, I understand that, to some, the LSEA may seem like “much ado about nothing,” an inconsequential law that merely reinforces “critical thinking” in the classroom. I’d submit to you this: The sustained national and international criticism that Louisiana has received, particularly among the scientific community, will not subside until the law is repealed. Unless and until the LSEA is repealed, Louisiana will continue to be considered a toxic environment for scientists and academics; we will continue to bleed away jobs in the knowledge-based economy. The longer the LSEA remains on the books, even if the law is never fully utilized, the more difficult it becomes for Louisiana to cultivate and retain a dynamic, 21st century workforce.

As you know, Mr. Chairman, laws are often intended to merely serve symbolic functions. Occasionally, legislatures pass laws that may never be fully enforced but that, nonetheless, still effectively deter or encourage certain behavior or policy aspirations. During your upcoming committee hearing, I imagine you will hear from defenders of the LSEA that it has not “harmed” anyone, that those who oppose it are somehow imagining things, that it’s really about providing students with the most robust education possible, that it encourages “critical thinking.” Mr. Chairman, I understand it’s not polite to use this word in politics, but these are all demonstrable lies. If you need any evidence of the harm the LSEA has already caused Louisiana (and I’m not trying to sound flippant), all you need to do is conduct a Google search.

The LSEA purposely relies on semantic subterfuge and deception. Its proponents disingenuously argue that it’s about ensuring “critical thinking.” Mr. Chairman, respectfully, it is manifestly clear that the purpose and intent of the LSEA is to allow evangelical New Earth Creationists the opportunity to promote their own religious beliefs as legitimate science in public school classrooms. It’s not exactly a secret, either. During the last two Senate Education Committee meetings concerning previous repeal bills, those who supported the LSEA attempted to turn the hearings into an embarrassing kangaroo court. As the record reflects, their testimony had nothing to do with “critical thinking.” Instead, the proponents of the LSEA made it abundantly obvious they were more concerned with teaching their religious beliefs as science than in teaching the scientific method. Video clips from those meetings have garnered hundreds of thousands of views online– not because the LSEA’s defenders offered insightful, cogent analysis, but because people were stunned and exasperated by the breathtaking ignorance on full display. It may seem funny or amusing to a national audience, but to those of us who believe in Louisiana, the kabuki theater is embarrassing. The LSEA’s defenders suggest the law has nothing to do with putting science or evolution “on trial,” but during the last two years, that’s exactly what they have attempted to do in your committee. This year, for the sake of our state’s reputation and all of us who have earned a degree in Louisiana public schools, I hope that you and the members of your committee will end this charade, once and for all, and stand up for science.

I sincerely appreciate your leadership on STEM, and I thank you for your service to the people of Louisiana.

Please forgive my long-windedness. I am, obviously, very passionate about this issue. Once again, I urge you to support SB 26.

Respectfully,

Lamar White, Jr.

Louisiana College President Joe Aguillard Accused of Fraud, Misappropriation, Criminal Misrepresentation ³

According to an independent investigation conducted by Kinney, Ellinghausen, Richard & DeShazo, a New Orleans-based law firm, Louisiana College President Joe Aguillard “engaged in numerous improprieties and falsities in his representations not only to school donors, but to the (LC) Board of Trustees.” The report, which was published by The Town Talk, reveals that Aguillard has repeatedly and consistently misled the LC Board of Trustees on the purpose of donations pledged by Edgar Cason and the Cason Foundation and that Aguillard misappropriated at least $60,000, including $2,000 for a pair of suits. Quoting from The Town Talk (bold mine):

The firm was hired by Gene Lee, chairman of the LC Board of Trustees, in the wake of whistleblower complaints filed against Aguillard by LC Vice Presidents Charles L. “Chuck” Quarles and Timothy “Tim” Johnson. Copies of the law firm’s report to the trustees, dated March 17, were obtained by The Town Talk.

….

“I am no attorney and I do not claim to have any expertise in federal or state law,” Quarles wrote in his complaint. “However, I fear the actions of the President are not only unethical, but also illegal. In my opinion, they constitute criminal misrepresentation, misappropriation and fraud.”

Earlier today, former LC Professor Rondall Reynoso reported that Louisiana College lost “the largest donor in college history due to the unethical behavior of Joe Aguillard.” Reynoso published a letter from the donor to the Board of Trustees, much of which mirrors the allegations leveled in the independent investigation report. Quoting (bold mine):

We deeply regret that we must now discontinue that support due to actions of President Aguillard which we believe to be unethical and potentially illegal. We disapprove of his use of Caskey funds for LC Tanzania without our permission and consider this to be misappropriation. We have suspected for several months that Dr. Aguillard has been misleading others about our statements and commitments. We believe that Dr. Aguillard has told others about our statements and commitments. We believe that Dr. Aguillard has told others about pledges to the school which we never made. We thought that we could stop the deception by choosing to communicate with Dr. Aguillard in writing but we have reason to believe that Dr. Aguillard has distorted even our written statements.

Although Reynoso redacted the name of the donor, both The Town Talk and the independent investigation report reveal the donor to be Edgar Cason of Coushatta, Louisiana. Cason is the owner of Fairview Trucking and at least 68 acres in the heart of the Haynesville Shale, land that, according to experts, yields more than $1 million a month for Chesapeake Energy. See 92 So.3d 436 (La. App. 2 Cir. 4/11/12).

During the last two and a half years, Cason donated approximately $5 million to Louisiana College with specific instructions for the funds to be used exclusively for the development of the Caskey School of Divinity. According to Reynoso and others, Cason had contemplated eventually donating as much as $60 million to Louisiana College. The independent investigation report reveals that Joe Aguillard repeatedly deceived the Board of Trustees about the purpose and intent of Cason’s donations and pledges, essentially validating everything alleged in Cason’s letter.

Against Cason’s repeated and specific instructions, Aguillard spent approximately $60,000 on expenses related to a trip to Tanzania, where he hoped to build a high school, a project he titled “LC Tanzania.” During a trip to Tanzania in October of 2011, Aguillard spent at least $2,000 of Cason’s donations on two suits, apparently for himself.

The report also reveals that Aguillard repeatedly claimed that a donor, presumably the Casons, had pledged $10 million to pay for the construction of a dual-purpose law school and divinity school building. From the report (bold mine):

Furthermore, there is no evidence to support Dr. Aguillard’s claim that the Casons had donated a $10 million gift in the form of the building to concurrently house the Divinity and Law School on the main campus. Dr. Aguillard’s statement to this fact is in actuality conclusively false. In fact, Edgar Cason made it abundantly clear on several occasions that he had no interest in investing in “brick and mortar.” These statements should have put him on notice that the Cason Foundation was not and would not be contributing for the construction of a new campus building. However, Dr. Aguillard made several statements to the Board of Trustees that this money had been offered to the College for the purpose of a new campus building. During the December 4, 2012 meeting of the Board, Dr. Aguillard made no attempt to correct Mr. Gilbert Little’s presentation concerning the supposed existence of these funds. He later claimed that he simply forgot to tell Mr. Little that these funds were actually not available. It was only through the intervention of Dr. Quarles that the Board was prevented from making a decision.

Dr. Aguillard not only made material representations to the Board of Trustees, but he also misappropriated almost $60,000 from the Cason Foundation to fund LC Tanzania. This was done in spite of specific instructions from Mr. Cason that he had no desire to fund this project. After being confronted about this misappropriation, Dr. Aguillard attempted to mislead his previous action by seeking the Cason’s approval of an undated statement to approve the use of funds for LC Tanzania. Understandably, Mr. Cason refused to sign this statement as he was not willing, and had never been willing to fund this project.

Aguillard, it’s worth noting, refused to be interviewed by the independent investigators, even though they were hired by Gene Lee, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees and the Compliance Officer for LC’s Whistleblower Policy. For his part, Aguillard claims that he has already been exonerated by a “special committee” of allegedly hand-selected trustees, including, among others, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.

(As a side note: If Tony Perkins was aware of these detailed accusations concerning criminal misrepresentation, misappropriation, and fraud and decided to dismiss them, then this story is going national, and Perkins has some explaining to do).

As regular readers of this blog know, I’ve been an outspoken critic of Joe Aguillard for years. I’ve documented, on numerous occasions, the ways in which he has systematically eviscerated the reputation and credibility of Louisiana College. Last year, in late March, I called on him to resign or be fired. I renew that call, though, now, to be honest, it would seem more appropriate for him to be fired, to not even give him the “dignity” of resigning on his own terms, to treat him the same way that he has treated anyone and everyone who has dared to disagree with him. That’d restore at least some balance back to the universe.

The Discovery Institute: Bobby Jindal Doesn’t Understand “Creationism” or the Law ^Reply

Ten days ago, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, in responding to a question about teaching creationism in public school classrooms, publicly confirmed what many of us have been saying for years (skip to 9:45): The true purpose of the controversial Louisiana Science Education Act is to provide a mechanism by which public schools may teach creationism and “intelligent design” as valid science. As I mentioned at the time, by explicitly linking the teaching of creationism and intelligent design with the Louisiana Science Education Act, Bobby Jindal unwittingly exposed the law as facially unconstitutional and violative of the Establishment Clause.

Jindal’s remarks, not surprisingly, sent off alarms at the Discovery Institute, a creationist lobbying organization that touts the Louisiana Science Education Act as one of its signature legislative accomplishments. Indeed, the LSEA was based, in large part, off of the Discovery Institute’s “model statute.” The blog Sensuous Curmudgeon has been tracking this from the very beginning, and they cut right to the chase. Quoting (bold mine):

The LSEA is the Discovery Institute’s crown jewel, so this admission by Jindal is one of the biggest public relations crises they’ve ever faced. Everyone has always known the real purpose of the LSEA (that’s why it was supported by all those Louisiana legislators who don’t know the difference between science and Voodoo), but the Discoveroids and their useful idiots have always claimed that the law is all about teaching science and it has nothing to do with creationism. Now, to the horror of the Discoveroids, Jindal has flat-out admitted that the law permits teaching creationism.

In response to Jindal’s comments connecting the teaching of creationism to the LSEA, the Discovery Institute published a baffling and hastily concocted blog post titled “Gotcha! Governor Jindal Avoids Lawyering on TV.” According to the Discovery Institute, when Bobby Jindal was speaking about the intent and purpose of a law that he personally signed, a law that his administration has defended in two separate Senate Education Committee meetings, he wasn’t speaking as the Governor, the man responsible for signing, enacting, and enforcing this law; according to the Discovery Institute, Bobby Jindal was speaking personally, as a politician.

Jindal may be an Ivy League educated Rhodes Scholar who turned down the opportunity to attend Yale Law School and who has spent the last fifteen years of his life at the highest levels of state and federal government, and yes, Jindal may have served two terms as a United States Congressman in the House of Representatives, which automatically qualifies him as one of the most powerful lawmakers in the country. But according to the Discovery Institute, Bobby Jindal’s comments about the intent of the law he signed shouldn’t be taken seriously, because, well, Bobby Jindal isn’t a lawyer. Quoting from the Discovery Institute (bold mine):

Like the critics of the LSEA, Governor Jindal is not a lawyer. He delivers no legal memo. However, unlike the critics of the LSEA, Governor Jindal is a Rhodes Scholar with a degree in biology, an experienced politician who knows what his role is and when to stick to it.

….

Teaching actual creationism in public schools is not constitutionally acceptable, if that’s even what he meant. It seems more likely that Jindal, like a lot of other people, used the term “creationism” imprecisely.

….

In brief, Jindal was speaking as a politician with an agenda, not as an interpreter of presently existing law.

I imagine the Discovery Institute thought they were doing Jindal a favor– covering for him– by suggesting that he had no idea what he was talking about, but instead, they managed to publish one of the most brutal (and patronizing) critiques ever written about Bobby Jindal, a direct refutation of the image that Jindal has spent nearly two decades attempting to cultivate– Jindal as the brilliant policy wonk, the wunderkind who is fluent and exhaustively informed on every single issue, encyclopedic and authoritative.

According to the Discovery Institute, Bobby Jindal doesn’t know what “creationism” means, and he doesn’t know the law. As vehemently as I disagree with Bobby Jindal on this and many other issues, I’m quite certain: He fully understands what creationism and intelligent design are, and he knows exactly what his law does. The only reason the Discovery Institute is in damage control mode is because they are aware Jindal admitted, openly and perhaps unintentionally, that the Louisiana Science Education Act is unconstitutional. Quoting again:

The TV interview (with Jindal) is not legislative history. It can’t be used by courts to construct the legislative intent behind the statute, for good or bad. Nor does it reveal how the law is actually being implemented.

Without question, the remarks of the Governor who signed the law and is responsible for implementing the law can be used by the courts. Sure, Jindal’s remarks may not speak to legislative history or legislative intent; they’re actually far more important: They indicate how he seeks to use the law. (I don’t know who the Discovery Institute thinks they’re fooling).

The Discovery Institute’s effectiveness relies entirely on its capacity for plausible deniability: They can’t explicitly promote a creationism law, because that’s unconstitutional. As they learned in 2005 in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District decision, they also can’t explicitly promote “intelligent design,” because that’s also unconstitutional. So, the Discovery Institute adapted, pardon the pun. Their model statute doesn’t explicitly promote creationism or intelligent design; it even contains a provision about how the law should not be construed to “promote any religious doctrine” or “discriminate” against religious beliefs, a provision that has been grossly misread by Jindal apologists like LSUS Professor Jeff Sadow, who, in a recent comment on NOLA.com, accused critics of never reading the LSEA and then incorrectly claimed that the LSEA actually prohibits the teaching of religion as science. To be clear, the LSEA was designed to facilitate the teaching of religion as science.

Just ask the guy who enacted it.

Louisiana Lawmaker Completely Guts “Lord’s Prayer” Bill ¹

A couple of weeks ago, I broke a story about State Representative Katrina Jackson’s attempt to pass legislation that would have ensured the daily recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in public schools. The story was picked up nationally. The day after I published the story, it was mentioned on “Overtime” with Bill Maher. Yesterday, it was referenced in a story on Salon.com. Jonathan Turley, the nationally-renowned constitutional law professor (and former Tulane law professor), wrote about it on his blog, arguing that it definitively violated the Establishment Clause. It was also picked up by the Friendly Atheist blog on Patheos, and the David Pakman Show.

Well, I am happy to report that Representative Jackson has completely gutted the bill, removing practically all of its most controversial provisions and amending it, instead, to focus on the rights of public school teachers to participate in student-led prayer groups, as long as these events are held before or after school and the teachers are “off the clock.” The amended bill also includes a provision that would allow for student prayer groups to use public school facilities during “noninstructional” (sic) time during the school day, a proposal that I think is riddled with logistical, constitutional, and legal problems (and one I hope she will scrap). Quoting:

Section 1. R.S. 17:2118 is hereby enacted to read as follows: §2118. Prayer; student-initiated; conditions

A. Upon the request of any public school student or students, the proper school authorities may permit students to gather in a classroom, auditorium, or other space that is not in use for prayer at any time before the school day begins when the school is open and students are allowed on campus, at any time after the school day ends provided that at least one student club or organization is meeting at that time, or at any noninstructional time during the school day. A school employee may be assigned to supervise the gathering if such supervision is also requested by the student or students and the school employee volunteers to supervise the gathering.

B. Any school employee may attend and participate in the gathering if it occurs before the employee’s work day begins or after the employee’s work day ends.

C. Any parent may attend the gathering if the parent adheres to school procedures for approval of visitors on the school campus.

D. The students may invite persons from the community to attend and participate in the gathering if other school organizations and clubs are allowed to make similar invitations. Such persons shall adhere to school procedures for approval of visitors on the school campus.

While there may be some debate over whether her new legislation’s provisions about teacher participation violates the Equal Access Act, at the very least, this is a legitimate debate: Currently, the law prohibits teachers from actively participating in student-led prayer groups; teachers may only “monitor” these events and activities as custodians.

Although it is important for student religious groups to actually be led by students and not by public school employees, Representative Jackson’s retooled legislation, if challenged, would likely provoke a real, substantive discussion on the rights of teachers who are not “on the clock” to pray aloud with students in student-led events before school. The law is a little vague on this, but it would be absurdly naive to think that this isn’t already being done, nearly 100% of the time. The question hinges on the distinctions between “monitoring” and “participating” and the ways in which it applies to prayer and other religious rituals.

That said, much of Representative Jackson’s amended bill is actually just a recapitulation of existing law. The Equal Access Act already provides students with the right to form religious groups and meet on school property before and after school, so long as the school also provides the same rights and privileges to other groups.

Ms. Jackson’s proposed legislation now also contains language about allowing students the ability to use school facilities during non-instructional hours. As I mentioned earlier, I think this particular proposal is somewhat troubling, because I’m unclear how it could effectively and logistically conform with the Equal Access Act. Moreover, school employees are “on the clock,” even during non-instructional periods, so it appears, at least superficially, to be troubling. The problem is this, as held by the 9th JDC:

Student/staff time at high school constituted “actual classroom instruction” under Equal Access Act, and thus school district would not be required to allow high school religious student group to meet during student/staff time, since such time did not qualify as noninstructional under statute; student/staff time was scheduled period where attendance was taken and students could not leave campus, but were allowed to participate in certain student club meetings with prior arrangement. Education for Economic Security Act, § 802 et seq., 20 U.S.C.A. § 4071 et seq.

Prince v. Jacoby, 303 F.3d 1074 (9th Cir. 2002)

The Supreme Court case Lee v. Weisman makes it clear:

A reasonable dissenter of high school age could believe that standing or remaining silent signified her own participation in, or approval of, the group exercise, rather than her respect for it. And the State may not place the student dissenter in the dilemma of participating or protesting. Since adolescents are often susceptible to peer pressure, especially in matters of social convention, the State may no more use social pressure to enforce orthodoxy than it may use direct means. The embarrassment and intrusion of the religious exercise cannot be refuted by arguing that the prayers are of a de minimis character, since that is an affront to the rabbi and those for whom the prayers have meaning, and since any intrusion was both real and a violation of the objectors’ rights. Pp. 2657–2659.

Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 578, 112 S. Ct. 2649, 2651, 120 L. Ed. 2d 467 (1992)

On a final note, though, I want to express my gratitude to Representative Jackson. She and I may not see eye-to-eye on these issues, but almost immediately after I published my first story, Representative Jackson began engaging me (and others) on Twitter and social media. She listened to our concerns, and she responded. Most politicians, when challenged, tend to double-down; Ms. Jackson, however, was receptive, collaborative, and respectful to her critics. I may not like this new legislation, but I like it a lot more than the previous bill. And I sincerely thank her for hearing us out.

Zack Kopplin: We Have An Obligation to Speak Out ^Reply

Bobby Jindal: Let’s Teach Them Creationism. ³

Today, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal finally admitted, for the very first time, that the controversial Louisiana Science Education Act, which he signed into law during his first year in office, was designed and intended to allow public schools the ability to teach creationism as legitimate scientific theory.

Jindal made his comments to NBC News correspondent Hoda Kotb, during tail end of an interview at the Education Nation conference in New Orleans. Kotb asked Jindal, “Should creationism be taught in school?”

Jindal attempted to dodge the question, pivoting to the importance of science education and ensuring Louisiana students were nationally and internationally competitive. “If you’re asking about what should be taught in private schools, in Catholic schools, in independent schools,” Jindal said, “I think parents can make the decisions about where they send their kids to school, about what kinds of values their kids are taught.” Of course, that wasn’t what Kotb was asking.

“So you don’t think that.. so, not in public schools? You don’t think creationism should be taught in public schools?”

Since NBC News hasn’t yet provided an official transcript of Jindal’s remarks, I’ve taken the liberty of transcribing them (bold mine):

Jindal: “We have what’s called the Science Education Act, that says if a teacher wants to supplement those materials, if the school board’s OK with that, if the State school board’s OK with that, they can supplement those materials.

“Bottom line, at the end of the day, we want our kids to be exposed to the best facts. Let’s teach them about the Big Bang theory. Let’s teach them about evolution. Let’s teach them….

“I’ve got no problem if a school board, a local school board, says we want to teach our kids about creationism, that some people have these beliefs as well.

“Let’s teach them about intelligent design.

“I think teach them the best science.

“Let them, give them the tools where they can make up their own mind, not only in science but as they learn and teach about other controversial issues, whether it’s global warming or whether it’s…”

Kotb: “Climate change…”

Jindal: “Climate change or these other issues. What are we scared of?

“Let’s teach our kids the best facts and information that’s out there. Let’s teach them what people believe and let them debate and learn that.

“We shouldn’t be afraid of exposing our kids to more information, more knowledge. Give them critical thinking skills, and as adults they’ll be able to make their own and best decisions.”

The problem with politicians like Bobby Jindal: Too often, their mouths work faster than their brains. In the span of only thirty seconds of frenetic blathering, Bobby Jindal unwittingly exposed the LSEA as an unconstitutional law respecting the establishment of religion. He took the bait- hook, line, and sinker.

You see, the Louisiana Science Education Act relies on an elaborate legal trick. In its first incarnation as the Louisiana Education Freedom Act, the language was explicitly pro-creationist. In fact, its sponsor, State Senator Ben Nevers, said that the bill was about ensuring that “scientific data related to creationism be taught;” Senator Nevers even admitted that he filed the bill at the request of the right-wing religious organization, the Louisiana Family Forum. But there was one major problem: The courts, including the United State Supreme Court, have repeatedly and consistently declared unconstitutional laws that mandate or encourage the teaching of creationism in public school science classrooms.

State Senator Nevers and the Louisiana Family Forum, likely at the urging of the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based creationist organization, had to drop any and all references to creationism if they wanted to stand any chance against a constitutional challenge. So, Senator Nevers refiled and renumbered the bill, and borrowing from the Discovery Institute’s model statute, he even included a cute provision about how the law could not establish religion, something, of course, that is already illegal.

The truth is, of course, that the Louisiana Science Education Act is nothing more than a charade; its purpose and intentions are self-evident: The law has nothing to do with “critical thinking;” it’s about ensuring New Earth Creationists have the authority and the ability to indoctrinate public school children; it’s about equivocating a narrowly-held religious belief with empirically-based scientific theory.

That’s why Jindal screwed up: He admitted it. Sure, it was an open secret, but there is a damn good reason that the law was rewritten and scrubbed of any mention of “creationism.” The Discovery Institute, as sneaky and pernicious as I may find them to be, is at least savvy enough to realize that creationism in the classroom is unconstitutional.

In fact, one of their lawyers, Casey Luskin, wrote a lengthy article for the Liberty University Law Review titled “Zeal for Darwin’s House Consumes Them: How Supporters of Evolution Encourage Violations of the Establishment Clause.” Luskin argues, bafflingly, that even if creation “science” and “intelligent design” aren’t actually grounded in empirical, evidenced-based scientific theory, those who critique the scientific validity of creationism and intelligent design in public schools are in violation of the Establishment Clause’s prohibition against “inhibiting religion.”

Quoting:

Courts have consistently held that advocating creationism in public schools is unconstitutional. In this regard, this present author agrees with courts that there are certain core tenets of creationism—namely its adherence to supernatural or divine forces—which make it an unscientific and untestable religious viewpoint that cannot be constitutionally advocated in public schools. That having been said, there is a glaring asymmetry in the law when courts hold on the one hand that creationism cannot be advocated in public schools because it is not science, but on the other hand that it can be disparaged as “scientifically . . . nonsense,” also because it is not science.

Luskin, like most of those employed by the Discovery Institute, claims that he is not a New Earth Creationist, but he argues that creationists should be allowed to have their cake and eat it too. Science teachers should present Christian creation mythology as “alternative” scientific theory, but if they dare to use the scientific method to “critique” creationism, they’re “inhibiting religion” and violating the First Amendment.

Again, the Louisiana Science Education Act has nothing to do with “critical thinking;” it’s actually about protecting the sanctity of a fundamentally unscientific and definitively religious belief.

With all due respect to those who believe in New Earth Creationism as an article of faith, if creationism is introduced in the science classroom and legitimately and thoroughly “critiqued,” it’s immediately invalidated and discarded. Obviously, that’s not what supporters of the LSEA intend. They’d rather their religion be introduced, uncritically, in order to poke holes in science, to reinforce, validate, and reassure the fundamentalist religious beliefs instilled in young, impressionable children by their fundamentalist religious parents, to stifle a meaningful discussion on things that challenge the validity of evangelical Protestantism.

Bobby Jindal wasn’t supposed to say “creationism.” He was only supposed to say “intelligent design.” The constitutionality of the LSEA is constructed, after all, on semantic dishonesty– neologisms and code language. By even casually suggesting that the State of Louisiana should be teaching “creationism,” as provided under the LSEA, Jindal tears down his own rhetorical house of cards.

In a way, I get it. Jindal’s terrified of these white evangelical Protestants, a group blamed for his loss in the 2003 gubernatorial election. He’s spent much of his five years as Governor kowtowing to them, choppering in every other Sunday to one of their church services in the middle of Nowhere, Louisiana. It may be hard to believe, but Bobby Jindal is still only 41 years old. He’s a young Governor whose political career has been determined by old, white, predominantly rural, evangelical Protestant men. After losing the election in 2003, The American Spectator reported:

“If there was a racist backlash against Jindal anywhere, it would be in north Louisiana, in Duke country,” Louisiana political analyst John Maginnis told Rod Dreher of National Review Online after the race.

To some extent, Blanco laid the groundwork for a such a backlash herself. She dusted off her maiden name and campaigned as Kathleen Babineaux Blanco. Voters encountered the full name on the ballot, where her opponent was listed as “Bobby” Jindal, complete with quotation marks (Jindal’s given name is Piyush). Appealing to tribal instincts in the only state where Frenchness is still considered a virtue, Blanco’s packaging of herself was designed to make it clear who had the deeper roots in Cajun country.

Such tapping of identity politics for ethnic whites is nothing particularly unusual or scandalous. The shamrock incorporated into Irish-American candidates’ names is a staple of local politics across much of the Midwest and Northeast. It would be unfair to suggest that Blanco ran a racist campaign. At the same time, isn’t it worth noting that the usual suspects, to whom unfairness rarely gives pause, haven’t so much as raised an eyebrow?

But it’s time for him to become an adult in this conversation. He’s an Ivy League educated Rhodes Scholar with a degree in Biology. His pandering on creationism is cowardly and intellectually, morally, and ethically dishonest. And I get the impression that he knows it: In his interview with NBC, it was revealing that he attempted to turn the question about creationism in the classroom to the rights of private schools. The LSEA embarrasses Bobby Jindal; it tarnishes his image; it forces him completely off-message. He’s the guy who dared to tell his fellow Republicans to stop being the stupid party, and his own party in Louisiana, the one he, ostensibly, leads, keeps sticking him with stupid. For some reason, perhaps it’s because he’s still young and ambitious and intimidated, Bobby Jindal feels more at ease with lecturing the national Republican Party about their stupidity than confronting people like Gene Mills of the Louisiana Family Forum, who have held hostage the State of Louisiana with their conspiratorial, hateful, and religiously intolerant social agenda.

One final note: In ancient China, during the Zhou Dynasty, the writer Xu Zheng essentially “invented” the creation myth of Pangu. Quoting from Wikipedia:

In the beginning there was nothing in the universe except a formless chaos. However this chaos coalesced into a cosmic egg for about 18,000 years. Within it, the perfectly opposed principles of Yin and Yang became balanced and Pangu emerged (or woke up) from the egg. Pangu is usually depicted as a primitive, hairy giant with horns on his head and clad in furs. Pangu set about the task of creating the world: he separated Yin from Yang with a swing of his giant axe, creating the Earth (murky Yin) and the Sky (clear Yang). To keep them separated, Pangu stood between them and pushed up the Sky. This task took 18,000 years; with each day the sky grew ten feet (3 meters) higher, the Earth ten feet wider, and Pangu ten feet taller. In some versions of the story, Pangu is aided in this task by the four most prominent beasts, namely the Turtle, the Qilin, the Phoenix, and the Dragon.

After the 18,000 years had elapsed, Pangu was laid to rest. His breath became the wind, mist and clouds; his voice the thunder; left eye the sun and right eye the moon; his head became the mountains and extremes of the world; his blood formed rivers; his muscles the fertile lands; his facial hair, the stars and milky way; his fur the bushes and forests; his bones the valuable minerals; his bone marrows sacred diamonds; his sweat fell as rain; and the fleas on his fur carried by the wind became the fish and animals throughout the land. Nüwa the Goddess then used the mud of the water bed to form the shape of humans. These humans were very smart since they were individually crafted. Nüwa then became bored of individually making every human so she started putting a rope in the water bed and letting the drops of mud that fell from it become new humans. These small drops became new humans, not as smart as the first.

Of course, this is all absurd and silly, and even at the time, the Chinese knew it was just a myth: A cosmic egg that gestated for 18,000 years and then became the entire universe?

Guess what?

It’s just as scientifically valid as New Earth Creationism and Intelligent Design.

Panic Attack: The Discovery Institute, Creationist “Think Tank,” Scared Senseless By Teenage College Student ¹

If the constitutionality of the Louisiana Science Education Act is ever challenged in court, one thing is for certain: It will involve a ton of “discovery” about the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based “think tank” that has, for more than twenty years, promoted creationism in the classroom. To be sure, the Discovery Institute prefers the terms “creation science” or, more popularly, “intelligent design,” which sounds palatable enough until you realize that it’s actually the same exact thing as New Earth Creationism, a belief in the literal interpretation of the creation myth in the book of Genesis. And indeed, if you probe a little further into the history, purpose, and intent of the Discovery Institute, you will discover something they’d prefer you didn’t know about: A confidential internal memorandum called “the Wedge” and also known as “the Wedge Strategy,” which was leaked onto the Internet in 1999.

The “Wedge” makes it abundantly clear: The Discovery Institute’s core purpose is advancing Protestant evangelical Christianity by undermining evolution and science. There’s really no way around this. The Discovery Institute doesn’t care about science; it’s concerned with undermining science in order to legislate and conscript religion.

The Discovery Institute, like them or loathe them, has been savvy in the past: They’re careful to not overtly mention religion; in the case of the Louisiana Science Education Act, they were apparently able to convince legislators to include a provision about the law not endorsing religion. But that’s merely a rhetorical and political ploy, and frankly, it’s not particularly clever. After all, “teach the controversy” legislation like the LSEA presupposes two fundamentally incorrect things: First, that there is a real scientific controversy (which there’s not), and second, that the “alternative theories” are grounded in the scientific method (which they’re not). “Teach the controversy,” much like “intelligent design,” is nothing more than rhetorical gamesmanship; it means, simply, “teach religion as science,” specifically New Earth Creationism.

Unfortunately, legislators and our Governor, Bobby Jindal, gave all of this a nod and a wink and made it a law, hoping that they could sufficiently mask their intentions behind facially neutral, meaningless neologisms. In so doing, Jindal and the Louisiana legislature provided the Discovery Institute with its greatest legislative victory, and they’ve been defending it tooth and nail ever since.

As if we’re all stupid in Louisiana.

As if we can’t see exactly what this is all about, who these people are, and what they’re actually promoting and encouraging.

When Zack Kopplin launched a campaign to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act three years ago, as a high school student, the Discovery Institute didn’t pay him any attention. Likely, they realized that it wouldn’t be good for them to go out on the attack against a kid in high school, and even if they did, it could only hurt their cause: In that first year, there was no real way the LSEA could muster the votes needed for a repeal.

Perhaps they thought that if they ignored him, he’d go away; the repeal effort would be stopped in its tracks, and they’d never have to say anything.

Unfortunately, for them, however, the effort to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act has only gained momentum. They likely never anticipated that Zack would be able to pick up the endorsements of 78 Nobel laureates, or that he would attract national and international media attention to the cause. Still, the Discoveroids, as they’re sometimes called, remained silent. It was still politically risky for them to engage a teenager, I suppose.

Well, I’m pleased to report: Not anymore. Yesterday, the Discovery Institute’s Joshua Youngkin wrote a screed about Zack’s recent appearance on “Real Time with Bill Maher” that is almost as obnoxious and self-righteous as Youngkin’s biography (My favorite line: “He is a Supreme Court watcher who has interacted personally with Justices Thomas and Scalia”).

As Youngkin’s post reveals, the Discovery Institute isn’t just taking Zack’s advocacy seriously; they’re in full-scale panic mode. Youngkin, a lawyer (not a scientist), titles the post, “Non-Scientist Says, ‘You’re Not a Scientist.’” If it wasn’t too meta, I would have titled this post, “Non-Scientist Attacks Non-Scientist for Saying, ‘You’re Not a Scientist’ to Non-Scientist.”

So, just to clarify for those people who, like Youngkin, apparently only operate in soundbites: In probably the best single moment of the show, Zack told Stephen Moore, the Wall Street Journal columnist and founder of the Club for Growth, “We’ve been over this: Stephen, you’re not a scientist,” in response to Moore’s suggestion that the government was wasting money by funding research on snail mating (more on that in a moment).

It was a clever line, a zinger, and everyone on the set, including Moore himself, thought it was hilarious. But Youngkin obviously didn’t understand why it was so funny; he’d have readers believe that Zack, the history major, was asserting himself as a scientist, as if he was just being some smug kid. The truth is: Only minutes before, in a completely different conversation and before Zack had joined the panel, Stephen Moore said, in response to remarks by Senator Bernie Sanders, “I’m not a scientist.” Seriously, Stephen Moore said that exact line only minutes before; Zack merely reminded him of what he had just said, hence the “We’ve been over this, Stephen.”

Joshua Youngkin, a Discovery Institute lawyer, wasn’t just comfortable with this leading headline; he desperately wanted to demonstrate that those poor snails and their research was an extravagant waste of money, not because he knew anything about the science but, like Stephen Moore, it sounded terrible to someone like him.

Let me assuage both Joshua Youngkin and Stephen Moore: We’re studying snail mating habits because snails are carrying deadly infectious diseases that are sickening and killing people. We’re funding this research because snails carry diseases that kill children. Sorry, Joshua and Stephen, but your argument is ruined and exposed as nothing more than a political trick, a cheap and ignorant potshot.

One more thing: We could have focused on a court challenge, but we’ll continue to put forth repeal bills and spare children and parents from prolonged litigation about their own religious discrimination; it’d be better for everyone if the bill was simply repealed legislatively.

We’re optimistic. And apparently, we have good reason to be: The Discovery Institute is freaking out.

Zack Kopplin on “Real Time With Bill Maher”: A Live-Blogging Extravaganza ³

Upperestdate: As a result of his appearance, Kopplin has been featured by Huffington Post, Upworthy, TruthDig, the Moderate Voice, and Media Matters, among others.

Upperdate: Once the video is online, I’ll post it. But this is my favorite tweet of the night:

Update: So, I’ll live-tweet this and then update the blog afterward. If you don’t have HBO, you can still watch the Overtime segment online.

Tonight, Zack Kopplin, the Louisiana native and Rice University sophomore who, at the age of 17, launched an international campaign against Louisiana’s unconstitutional creationism in the classroom law, will appear as the special guest on the HBO show “Real Time with Bill Maher.”

As a high school student, his hometown newspaper, The Baton Rouge Advocate, called Zack a “giant killer.” He is also the recipient of the Hugh Hefner First Amendment Award (not to be confused with other prizes Hefner doles out at the Playboy Mansion), and the National Center for Science Education’s Friend of Darwin Award (not to be confused with the Darwin Award). Last year, Zack again generated national and international attention on the exhaustive research he conducted on creationist voucher schools (Full Disclosure: I collaborated on some of this research with Zack and am a registered agent on his new non-profit organization). Late last year, Zack was selected as the first-ever “TroubleMaker of the Year.”

Zack will become the youngest-ever special guest on Bill Maher’s show.

The show airs at 9PM Central Time, and we’ll be liveblogging here on CenLamar. Contributions are welcome.

Stay tuned.

Louisiana Legislator Wants Lord’s Prayer in Public Schools ³⁷

I’m sorry, Ms. Jackson, but are you for real?

Not content to let House Republicans monopolize unconstitutional legislation, Louisiana State Representative Katrina Jackson (D-Monroe) recently filed HB 660, which she’d like to be known as “The Parental Choice Historical Prayer and Pledge Act.”

If passed, Jackson’s bill would allow and encourage public schools to begin each school day with the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. In fact, it’d mandate BESE to establish a Lord’s Prayer policy. Quoting:

A. The State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, or “state board”, shall establish a policy and develop procedures to allow public school students to participate in the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer and the “Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag” at the commencement of each school day. Such policy and procedures shall include but not be limited to provisions for the following:

(1) Student participation in the recitation of the prayer and pledge shall be voluntary.

(2) Students shall be reminded that the Lord’s Prayer is the prayer that the pilgrim fathers recited when they came to America in search for freedom.

(3) Students shall be informed that these exercises are not meant to influence an individual’s personal religious beliefs in any manner.

(4) The recitations shall be conducted so that students learn of America’s great freedoms, including the freedom of religion symbolized by the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.

B. The state board shall develop a program of instruction for public schools with regard to the pilgrim fathers.

Let’s get a few things out of the way. As beautiful and meaningful as the Lord’s Prayer may be to millions of Christians all over the world, the suggestion that its recitation symbolizes “freedom of religion” is a gross distortion and manipulation of American history; it’s shameless. The recitation of Lord’s Prayer is definitively, self-evidently a religious ritual, and while the pilgrims from the Mayflower may be an important part of early colonial American history, the United States of America wasn’t founded by “pilgrim fathers.” Apparently, Representative Jackson not only doesn’t understand the Constitution, she also never properly learned American history. But, to her, I suppose, that’s no problem; she can just ensure the state rewrites history: “The state board shall develop a program of instruction for public schools with regard to the pilgrim fathers.”

Fundamentally, the bill is defiantly unconstitutional. If passed, it’d violate more than 50 years of established United States Supreme Court precedent. That’s worth emphasizing: Fifty years. Usually, when a lawmaker is forced to defend of explain this type of blatantly unconstitutional legislation, they wax philosophical about the destructive forces of secularization in America. “School prayer is under attack,” they say. And so, they introduce legislation like this, because, they say, they’re compelled to act with fierce urgency. At least that’s the typical excuse, but I wouldn’t presume to understand what, if anything, Representative Jackson is thinking.

But I do know this. She didn’t write this bill. This is not her original work, not even her original idea. She filed it on someone else’s behalf, and more than likely, there’s campaign money involved here. Indeed, there’s an almost identically-worded bill being considered right now in Indiana, which was itself modeled after a bill from Kentucky. She’s clearly doing someone else’s bidding, though I doubt she’d see it that way. Quoting from her campaign biography:

Ms. Jackson attributes her accomplishments to not just having a dream, but having a dream that lines up with God’s plan for her life. She believes her footsteps are ordered by God and everyday Ms. Jackson works to allow God to guide her in the process of realizing her dream. Her family worships at Riverside Missionary Baptist Church in Monroe, LA.

There’s really nothing quite like a politician who claims their “footsteps are ordered by God.” It’s the ultimate defense against bad government and stupid policies. Incidentally, it’s the same logic the pilgrims used when they landed on Plymouth Rock. Quoting from the U.S. Department of Defense (bold mine):

In December, a scouting party went ashore, and tradition says they first set foot upon the stone known today as “Plymouth Rock.” This may or may not be true, but the rock is so large that they probably at least used it as a landmark when rowing ashore.

The men in this first group ashore feared a possible confrontation with unfriendly Indians, but soon they discovered the local Indians were all dead of smallpox. They took this as divine providence and assumed God had cleared their way by killing off the natives.

Jindal’s Unconstitutional “Tim Tebow” Law Proves Louisiana Legislature Cares More About Football Than Education ⁵

In many parts of Texas, high school football isn’t simply a tradition; it’s a religion, a way of life, and a mega-million dollar industry. It’s been the subject of bestselling novels, movies, and at least one hit network television show, Friday Night Lights, based on the novel of the same name. Last year, a high school in Allen, Texas made international headlines after opening a $60 football stadium, a decision that perfectly epitomizes the enormous imbalances in public education funding and financing. When the stadium in Allen was under construction, Texas Governor Rick Perry, along with the state legislature, cut more than $5 billion from public education.

Although Louisiana may not be known for high school football extravagance, football is still a religion for many of us; our NFL team, after all, is the Saints. In fact, for the fourth year in a row, more professional football players (per capita) hail from Louisiana than from any other state. Louisiana high school football may not be as glamorous or as well-funded as our Texan neighbors, but we know how to cultivate talent. And although Louisiana high school football games aren’t played in mega-million dollar stadiums, they still generate significant revenue.

Last year, when Governor Bobby Jindal swept through his education “reform” initiative, which included the most expansive school voucher program in the country, I imagined, perhaps cynically, that financially struggling private schools would be likely to exploit the program and offer a disproportionate number of vouchers to star athletes attending academically struggling public schools.

Take, for example, Evangel Christian Academy in Shreveport, a football powerhouse. During the last twenty years, Evangel has won a dozen high school football championships, a fact made even more impressive when you consider its high school opened in 1990. But in those twenty-three years, Evangel, despite its prowess on the football field, has only graduated two National Merit Scholars. (There were two in my graduating class at a public high school in Alexandria, at least four the year before. In fact, my Louisiana public high school even had a National Merit Scholar in its very first year).

Now, to be fair, I have no way of knowing whether or not Evangel Christian Academy is using the voucher program as a way of recruiting athletes to play for its football team. And unfortunately, neither does Superintendent John White or anyone else in charge, because the State of Louisiana doesn’t actually oversee which students are approved or denied for vouchers; the school does. Currently, there is no way to demonstrate that a private school is exploiting the voucher program to disproportionately recruit star athletes (even when they claim a “lottery” selection process; a lottery, after all, can always be rigged). But we do know this (bold mine):

A mother named Trailais Tillman signed up her son, Aidan, to receive a voucher. Aiden was zoned to go to a public school that is failing. She was thrilled when the lottery resulted in her son receiving a school voucher for a private school called Evangel Christian Academy.

There was a big problem, though. Aiden has autism. Evangel Christian Academy told Trailais Tillman that the school does not have the services that he needs. This means that even through Aiden was selected to receive a school voucher he cannot accept it.

Again, I hate to sound cynical, but Aiden is better off at a public school that is legally obligated to provide him with individualized special education. Either way, his story perfectly demonstrates the problem with Jindal’s voucher program– trapping the most vulnerable students into struggling schools and then reallocating already-scant resources to unaccountable private schools.

Bobby Jindal’s program uses taxpayer dollars to actively discriminate against mentally and physically disabled children. Period.

And guess what? Bobby Jindal doesn’t deny it. The Louisiana Department of Education actually issued a response to the story about Aiden. They claimed their hands were tied because non-public schools weren’t required to adhere to federal laws that protect disabled students. If Governor Jindal wants to provide tens of millions of dollars every year to private schools, then he should be championing an analog of the IDEA Act for Louisiana, instead of cowardly ducking behind it.

His voucher program has very little to do about “saving education.” So-called “school choice” provides conservatives with the ability to do two things they’ve always wanted to do: Monetize public education and eliminate all of the annoying attendant liabilities and obligations– like adequately providing for the disabled or not discriminating against students on the basis of their religion.

This has nothing to do with helping those who are most affected by failing public schools. If the goal is to decimate and further marginalize a struggling inner-city neighborhood or rural community, then one of the best ways is to strip away the funding it needs to maintain and operate its most important civic institutions– its public neighborhood schools, to gut those institutions of all but the most vulnerable, effectively transforming our public schools into federally-mandated special education centers for the mentally and physically disabled and for children who struggle academically.

So, back to football, because, apparently, that is what our legislature really cares about:

During the next month, the legislature will consider three different bills that aim to force the Louisiana High School Athletic Association to reconsider its decision to create two different high school football championships, one for public schools and one that, essentially, is for private schools. Additionally, the State Senate will consider a bill that repeals a series of laws about the LHSAA that the Louisiana State Supreme Court recently declared unconstitutional.

The irony is: Unlike Governor Bobby Jindal or the majority of the Louisiana legislature, the Louisiana High School Athletic Association actually has standards. The LHSAA doesn’t like it when member schools attempt to cheat the system by stealing athletes from other schools. They understand that high school athletics, particularly high school football, can be a cash cow, and as a result, there may be an incentive for some schools to “game” the system.

A couple of months ago, the Jindal Administration’s and the Louisiana legislature’s attempts at coercing the LHSAA were dealt a death blow at the Louisiana State Supreme Court. You can read the case here. It’s a doozy.

But the facts are pretty simple: the Louisiana legislature, at Jindal’s behest, passed a bill that required the LHSAA to allow home school students the ability to participate in their sanctioned events. Basically, home school students would become “free agents” in the lucrative world of high school football. The law violated the LSHAA’s own bylaws, which provide a framework for qualifying schools and students.

Jindal, under the banner of “school choice,” attempted to force the LHSAA, by law, to change its practices, even though neither he nor the legislature attempted to interfere with the bylaws of other, privately-held Christian athletic associations. Moreover, the Jindal administration asked the courts to rule that the LHSAA was a “quasi-public” organization, a distinction that likely made no real difference. The LHSAA was organized as a private non-profit corporation. Labeling it “quasi-public” merely meant the legislative auditor could review its annual financial reports, something already done by the IRS or anyone with a subscription to GuideStar.com.

In their amicus brief to the Louisiana Supreme Court, the Jindal administration spends an inordinate amount of time talking about Tim Tebow. Quoting (bold mine):

Perhaps the most well-known beneficiary of Florida’s Craig Dickinson Act is Tim Tebow. The statute allowed Tebow, who was home-schooled, to play football at Allen D. Nease High School in Ponte Verde, Florida. Tebow’s exploits as a high school football player are the stuff of legend in Florida. It is also common knowledge that Tebow, as the quarterback of the University of Florida football team, won the Heisman Trophy in 2007 — the award given to the most outstanding college football player in the country. Tebow helped lead the University of Florida football team to two college football national championships — one in 2006 and another in 2008. At the end of his college football career, Tebow held the all-time Southeastern Conference records for passing efficiency and rushing touchdowns. As a result of his accomplishments on the football field, Tebow became perhaps the most recognizable ambassador for the University of Florida and currently is a prominent professional quarterback in the National Football League.

It is a bit sobering to realize that if a student athlete like Tebow were residing in Louisiana today, the LHSAA would be opposing legislation that would allow him, as a home-schooled student, to play high school football and perhaps pursue an athletic scholarship to a university like LSU. In other words, if the LHSAA were to prevail here and have Louisiana’s legislation declared unconstitutional, the LHSAA would thwart the development of home-schooled student athletes like Tebow in Louisiana.

No, this is not a joke, though the majority of the Louisiana State Supreme Court may have a different perspective: They were not impressed or convinced by Jindal’s pathetic “Tim Tebow” argument, and not only did they hold the LHSAA is, in fact, a private non-profit organization that is legally allowed to establish its own bylaws, they also struck down the entirety of Jindal’s “Tim Tebow” laws as unconstitutional.

If you want to understand why, exactly, the Louisiana legislature is considering a series of bills that would effectively ban public high schools from participating in LHSAA-sanctioned events, here’s your answer: The Jindal Administration, in its push for “school choice,” has been attempting to chip away at the authority of the LHSAA, an organization primarily comprised of actual educators, because the LHSAA believes its member schools and its participating students should all have to follow the same rules. (In the LHSAA’s brief, they list a series of legislative actions that were specifically undertaken to benefit individual football players).

And that’s what makes the LHSAA’s decision to create a dual high school football championship so genius and so unnerving to Jindal and his supporters. Many of these voucher schools were hoping to make money by recruiting top-notch public school athletes, but if they can’t compete against the teams with the most talent, their “championship” becomes less meaningful and more difficult to commoditize.

There’s less of an incentive to use public dollars for vouchers to build up an athletic program. And that’s exactly why this pending legislation is so important. At the end of this year’s session, Louisiana citizens will have a much better understanding of who cares more about high school football than ensuring a quality education.

State Senator Mike Walsworth: “I’m Not a Scientist” and I “Don’t Know Anything About Science” ¹

In the upcoming weeks, the Louisiana State Senate Education Committee will, once again, consider a bill to repeal the misnamed Louisiana Science Education Act. Last year, during the committee hearing, State Senator Mike Walsworth, a Republican from Ouachita Parish, asked a series of questions that- months later- made him the star of a viral video on YouTube.

And not to brag, but I was actually the first blogger to post this e.coli video, only a few hours after Zack Kopplin had uploaded it onto YouTube. Unfortunately for me, I buried the lede. There were so many absurd things said during last year’s committee meeting, so many different things going on, all at once, I didn’t know where to begin.

So I included the videos in an overwrought personal essay, instead of where they belonged– headlining a post detailing and documenting the willful ignorance of lawmakers who are responsible for making informed decisions on education policy. Thankfully, though, in an interview with Zack on the popular website i09, the Walsworth video clip was given prominent attention and within 24 hours, it and a few others went viral, racking up nearly 700,000 views. Suffice it to say, the video of Walsworth’s questioning a high school biology teacher on the merits of evolution is, perhaps, the most viral video in the history of the legislature.

Shreveport rap star Hurricane Chris will likely be disappointed to learn that his stirring rendition of the song “Halle Barry” isn’t even close. Walsworth’s video has already received twice as many hits as Hurricane Chris’s historic song. For some comic and musical relief:

And as fun and irreverent and (frankly) bizarre as Hurricane Chris’s performance was, I seriously doubt he would have anticipated that his viral video would soon be surpassed by a series of tired questions about science education. Hurricane Chris wasn’t the rock star. State Senator Mike Walsworth was, and by the of end the day, he likely could never appreciate why, months after this testimony had wrapped up, it was suddenly being ridiculed by people all over the world.

But here is the most interesting thing, and it had not been reported in Louisiana. A few months ago, in response to these viral videos and during an interview with Fox News 26 in Houston, Senator Walsworth said, “From the blogs. ‘Hey, you probably don’t know anything about science.’ And they’re probably right.,” he said. “But I was just asking questions. And that’s what debate is supposed to be about. I mean, I’m not a scientist.”

To recap: Mike Walsworth supports the thinly-disguised religious education bill, the Louisiana Science Education Act and then admits to Fox News Houston that those who oppose him are “probably right” and then, finally, concedes that he is not actually a scientist. He continues:

Do I believe that God created the heavens and the earth? Absolutely, I do,” Walsworth told FOX 26 News.

That is, without question, Walsworth’s personal religious beliefs on the origin and the development of the Universe; it’s not science, and it is not even a substitute for science.

They continue: “But the Louisiana legislator points out a paragraph in the law expressly forbidding the promotion of any religious doctrine or “discrimination for or against religion or non-religion.”Senator Walsworth says the purpose of the law was to give teachers and school administrators more flexibility in how they present concepts like evolution, global warming and human cloning. And the lawmaker says the controversy over the Louisiana Science Education Act is overblown.”

I vehemently disagree. This law was conceived with one central goal in mind: To promote Christian creationism as a competing scientific theory. But it’s not a scientific theory; it’s a religious myth. And eventually, it will be held Unconstitutional, despite its efforts to cleverly, serpentine work around the law.

Regardless of how milquetoast the language may seem, the undeniable truth is that by ensuring “flexibility” for teachers to critique valid science, they can, by definition, teach religion as science.

The Act may sparkle and smell like a new car, but if you ride it around the block a few times, parts will begin to fail and fall out; the headlights will break, and within weeks, you’ll realize you bought a lemon. Great on paper. But on the road, a death trap.

It’s worth noting: I don’t know who Mike Walsworth is. Maybe he is a nice man. I know many politicians who regret a vote or two. But he faces a daunting task this cycle: He admits that the scientists were right and that he knows nothing about science education.

Finally, he writes, “The Department of Education, as of – I just talked to them last week. Not one parental complaint. Not one.”

We have more than 70,000 signatures officially complaining, including thousands of Louisiana parents. The repeal effort has been endorsed by 78 Nobel Laureate scientists, dozens and dozens of ministers, priests, and clergy, the largest Science Education groups in the world, Hollywood celebrity comedians like Jason Alexander, Patton Oswalt, Bill Maher, and countless others.

When Gene Mills and Mike Walsworth and company attempt to suggest that no one has complained to anyone, I suggest they come prepared with their checkbooks. Coping the thousands of responses and then tens of thousands of pages will be labor intensive.

From the Vault: A Column I Wrote When I Was 17 ^Reply

As a disclaimer:

First, I didn’t write the headline. Second, I was only seventeen when I wrote this– more than thirteen years ago, and my understanding of these issues has, well, “evolved.” And third, again, I was just seventeen, writing for a conservative audience in a conservative newspaper; I wasn’t trying to be unnecessarily provocative, though I remember thinking I’d pulled off a coup by getting The Town Talk to publish something that referred to God as female.

I’ve referenced this article before in my posts about the Louisiana Science Education Act and my friend Zack Kopplin, who was seventeen when he began his campaign against Louisiana’s creationism law.

It’s stunning that we’re still debating this stuff.

Theory of evolution, God coexist in harmony

Youth Commentary

By Lamar White Town Talk Youth Council

FEBRUARY 4, 2000:

Greek philosopher Heraclitus believed that the only thing constant in our world is change. “You can’t step into a river at the same place twice,” he writes.

Change can heal, hurt, create, and kill.

We live now in a society of unlimited knowledge. Information can be relayed to us in a period of milliseconds via the Internet.

This decade has produced more knowledge than all of human history combined. As a whole, people are more aware, more active and more ambitious than ever before.

Americans are blessed with the privilege of free public education. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Only the educated are free.” Our freedom, therefore, is directly related to the knowledge we possess.

Not in Kansas

It is surprising to me that anyone in our age of change and intelligence would willfully oppose the teaching of evolution, one of biology’s principal theories. However, in Kansas this year, students will not be taught evolution due to an unprecedented ruling by the state school board.

Their school board will not “require” the education of evolution because it deems the theory to be baseless and inaccurate.

Many people believe that if one accepts the theory of evolution as being correct, then one denies the existence of a soul and God. Their contention is that evolution blasphemously opposes the Biblical translation of creationism, which states that the world was created in six days.

Creationism is a theory that has been debated tremendously throughout our century. When Darwin presented his theory of evolution, humankind felt somewhat less divine.

Creationism, which adheres to the ideas presented by Aristotle and Plato, states every form of life was created separately. It also adopts the idea that life is immutable, which evolution directly opposes.

Essentially, the theory of evolution states that all of the world’s life holds a common ancestor, that all life evolves slowly over time to adapt to changes in its environment, and that life on earth is in the constant process of perfecting itself.

Evolution, unlike most scientific theories, cannot be tested in a laboratory. Life evolves much too slowly for changes to be noted during one generation.

However, many experiments have noted small evolutionary changes in various species of insects in a period of only a few years.

Although the theory of evolution is not infallible, it is fairly well substantiated. The evidence lives all around us.

I believe that evolution is true. I also believe in God. In my opinion, the two things can simultaneously exist with no conflict.

I feel that evolution is a beautiful theory. It presents the idea that God is constantly improving Her or His creation, that life is eternally in the pursuit of perfection.

The Kansas School Board acted out of ignorance. Unfortunately, it did not understand the complexities of evolution and, as a result, denied students the opportunity to learn about it.

After thorough research, it is apparently obvious that the theory of evolution is well substantiated in fossil records and other botanical and zoological findings.

It’s disrespectful

In my opinion, the view that evolution and religion cannot simultaneously exist is disrespectful. There are many religious scholars who vehemently believe in the theory of evolution.

The story of Genesis can also be viewed as a metaphorical tale of creation. Before the world was created, time had no meaning.

After all, the sun was not even created until “day” four. Therefore, a “day,” as referred to in Genesis, might very well be millions of years.

Genesis also clearly states that Adam, the first human being, “was created out of the dirt of the earth.” This is, in a sense, a very evolutionary concept.

Hopefully, the incident in Kansas will prove to be isolated. As our knowledge of our history increases, one can only wish that respect for other beliefs will also increase.

It is important that both sides respect one another.

Harvard professor Steven Jay Gould, one of the country’s leading evolutionary scientists, believes in keeping science and religion in two distinct “magisterium.”

He adopts a theory of non-interference where science only deals with aspects relating to the earth and religion focuses primarily on the heavens.

He is right.

The reason that religion and science have conflicted so much in the past one hundred years is because both sides do not respect one another. Science won’t stop pestering religion about God, and religion won’t stop persisting creationism’s right to be taught in the public classroom.

The argument culminated with the Scopes Trial in 1925. John Scopes, a substitute teacher from Tennessee, was charged and convicted of teaching evolution in the classroom.

His trial, although partially rigged, shed light on evolution and paved the way for future educators to teach the theory.

I respect an individual’s right to believe in whatever he or she chooses.

However, I also feel that the basics of evolution are essential to any person’s knowledge of the past 150 years.

Charles Darwin’s revolutionary idea changed the path of science forever.

In his book On the Origins of Species, Darwin, a believer in God, writes, “There is a grandeur in this view of life (evolution), with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.”

Scientific hero

Darwin, once considered the most dangerous man in England, is now heralded as a modern day scientific hero. Things change with knowledge.

In 1996, Pope John Paul II, spiritual leader of Catholicism, adopted evolution. He states, “New knowledge has lead to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor for the theory (of evolution).”

Before stubbornly and ignorantly rejecting an alternate view on life, society must thoroughly understand it.

I believe that if the Kansas School Board truly comprehended the theory of evolution, then the theory would still be taught.

In the end, evolution will always be a theory.

Although there is some proof in fossil remains, notably the australopithecus africanus and the Neanderthal man, scientists and archeologists can’t go back in time and research; they can only speculate using what our past has provided us with.

Lamar White is a student at Alexandria Senior High School.

####

As a postscript: My last two paragraphs were stupidly and dishonestly worded, and I knew it at the time. Evolution is science, and I should have made it clear that there is a fundamental difference between scientific theories and stuff people believe in because they choose to read the book of Genesis literally. But again, I was seventeen.

Creationism is not a “theory;” it’s a willfully and blindly ignorant myth. Sure, science is always, existentially, “speculative,” insofar as no one will ever possess a complete and total understanding of the nature and purpose of life and the universe. But creationism is just absurd, ridiculous bombast.

If you’re a Christian and you believe in creationism, then you believe in a dumb and deceitful God, a God who purposely attempts to fool human beings by planting evidence of a structured but beautifully complicated universe– fossils, stars, quantum mechanics, physics, carbon dating, relativity, dinosaurs.

It’s all just one enormous ruse, a trick that the creationist God has played on all of human existence in order to test their “faith” in the literal interpretation of Genesis. What kind of God is that? A dumb and deceitful God, a God that shuns knowledge, a God that hates humankind, a God that corrupts the physical world to ensure that only the most blindly ignorant are granted eternal salvation.

It’s perfectly cool with me if folks want to believe in this hogwash, but when they start attempting to infect public schools with their poisonously ignorant mythology, I have and have always had a problem.

PS: I had also claimed Charles Darwin believed in God, and for a great part of his life, he did. But by the end of his life, Darwin was an outspoken agnostic.

CenLamar

Author: Lamar White, Jr

All Posts by Lamar White, Jr

UNCONSTITUTIONAL: Bobby Jindal’s “Moon Shot” Implodes ²

Louisiana State Senator Supports Creationism Law Because Of His Experience With Witch Doctor ⁷

An Open Letter to Conrad Appel, Chairman of the Louisiana Senate Education Committee ²

Louisiana Lawmaker Completely Guts “Lord’s Prayer” Bill ¹

Zack Kopplin: We Have An Obligation to Speak Out ^Reply

Panic Attack: The Discovery Institute, Creationist “Think Tank,” Scared Senseless By Teenage College Student ¹

Zack Kopplin on “Real Time With Bill Maher”: A Live-Blogging Extravaganza ³

Louisiana Legislator Wants Lord’s Prayer in Public Schools ³⁷

From the Vault: A Column I Wrote When I Was 17 ^Reply

May 2013
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